


Two Weeks From Twenty

by cecilkirk



Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M, Ryden, fever era, petekey, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-23 03:14:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6102999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilkirk/pseuds/cecilkirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I've got my heavy heart to hold me down /<br/>Once it falls apart, my head's in the clouds</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarajevo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarajevo/gifts), [bulletproofnature](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bulletproofnature/gifts).



> Title from Yellowcard's [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4N2W5dtQ5U) of the same name

_new poetry / in the boring celestial_

 

 

 

Ryan had to reevaluate distance now.

Across from the hospital was a coffee shop. All they needed to do was cross the street. They did; it was warm, they walked at a comfortable pace, fingers brushing. Ryan held the door open for Brendon and noticed he was short of breath. As they stood in line, he could hear Brendon wheeze, like a thick rattling in his lungs. Ryan would have to determine what distance meant to them now. He would have to make sure Brendon never had to go too far for his own good.

They sit at a booth. Brendon's breathing is shallow, quick, and loud.

Ryan pushes his thumb into the palm of his hand.

"Have you taken it yet?"

Brendon shakes his head, putting the box on the table, opening it. His breathing still hasn't calmed down.

"Ryan?"

His voice is weak and timid, so out of character it wraps tight and dense around Ryan's heart.

"Yeah?"

Between his fingertips, Brendon looks at the small white pill. "I'll be okay, won't I?"

"Of course," Ryan says, taking a sip of his coffee. "It's just pneumonia. You'll get over it in a week or two."

Brendon nods, washing down the pill with his own coffee. His features are rigid, suggesting he isn't anymore at ease.

"Don't know how much good that'll work with your coffee, though," Ryan says.

Brendon cocks his head just slightly, just enough for Ryan to notice. "What do you mean?"

The corner of Ryan's mouth tugs down in the implication of hesitance. "I mean, if you're going to put that shit in your body, I don't think any amount of steroid can right that wrong."

Brendon squints his eyes, drinking. "It's just peppermint."

"And that's disgusting, sunshine," Ryan says.

He catches Brendon's eyes, and neither can brush away the smiles blooming between them.

 

 

In the comfort of their home, Brendon is anything but. He has to sleep propped up against the headboard to manage to suck in the air he needs, or what little he can get. Even the act of walking is enough to make Brendon out of breath, no matter the distance. Ryan sits up with Brendon, a novel flat against his raised knees. Beneath the blankets, Ryan intertwines his fingers with Brendon's, rubbing thumb over thumb.

As the words in his lap begin to glaze Ryan's eyes over, Brendon coughs.

Ryan can only liken the sound to digging. Carefully, forcefully, Brendon is bringing up whatever coats the bottoms of his lungs. It makes the wheezing worse, makes his breaths shorter and shallower until he pulls his hand from Ryan's, planting it on the mattress in the attempt to get some kind of leverage, some way to stop himself from feeling like he's drowning.

And all Ryan can do is watch.

Brendon's nearly doubled over, the other hand clasped over his mouth to keep his fit tidy and easily forgotten. Ryan tries not to look at him; he knows Brendon wouldn't want Ryan to see him sputtering and hacking, struggling to breathe. He hated Ryan witnessing his vulnerability, especially when it was out of his control.

"Sorry," Brendon offers through a laugh, wiping his hand on his shirt.

Ryan clenches his jaw and swallows away the tension hovering in his throat.

"Oh, geez," Brendon says, looking at the clock beside him. "It's kind of late."

Ryan shrugs. He doesn't dare pry his jaw open. He fears the weakness of the words that will come out, and he fears not being able to control it.

"I don't want to keep you up," Brendon says, pulling back the sheets. "I'll go sleep in the other room."

"You--you don't need to do that," Ryan says, clearing his throat. "I don't mind."

Brendon stands at the side of the bed, looking down at Ryan. "I do."

Ryan can only hear the residual wheeze drown out Brendon's words.

"Well, hey," Ryan says as he climbs out of bed and stands next to Brendon. "Sleep well then, all right, sunshine?"

Brendon crooks his arm into a salute. "I will try my best."

The corner of Ryan's mouth turns up into a grin. "Good. I love you," he says, taking Brendon's hand. He is aware of the medication-induced trembling fingertips meeting his own restless digits.

Brendon mirrors Ryan's grin, and it is the epitome of symmetry. "I love you too, Ry."

For the sake of Brendon's lungs, Ryan kisses him on the cheek before he leaves.

And even as he climbs back into bed, he knows he will not be able to sleep. Comfort runs deep between them; although they are freshly adults, Ryan feels like he has aged alongside Brendon. He wonders if that is love--finding a rhythm with someone so deep it becomes second nature, and so natural it loses its abrasive edge to time. He wonders if the inability to sleep is an affirmation of his love for Brendon, dwelling in symmetry: the nature of their rhythm, the nature of his own ticking body, the nature of some outside force ensuring all of this occurs.

In the dark, beneath the sheets, his hand plunges into the void Brendon leaves beside him. It leaves his palm feeling drenched in something cold, something lonely. 

It is not an hour before Ryan knows he cannot bear to be in the bed alone. Somewhere, somewhere, he hopes this will never go away. He hopes the feeling is as natural as it feels.

As he crosses the apartment, he hears Brendon coughing. He tries to round the edges of the sound so it will not hurt him as deeply. And yet there is something innately unnatural in the attempt to soften blows and make superficial the well of love he has for Brendon.

Ryan opens the door past the ajar state he reaches it and finds Brendon staring at him.

His eyes are wide, flickering with panic and electric fear. What comes out of his throat is deep, ragged, desperate attempt to suck in air, terse and shallow but much more so than earlier today. Ryan can see his chest heaving, one hand gripping the sheets of the spare bed, the other on his chest, plucking and tearing like he can rip out the shit that fills his lungs.

Brendon looks to Ryan for help, but Ryan can't do anything.

He tears out of the threshold, back to their bedroom to grab his phone.

"Shit!" he screams as he drops it, irrationally loud because of panic--the panic creating claustrophobia in his thoughts and veins, filling the house. He drops to his knees and dials. He even begins to struggle breathing, and a cold bitterness bleeds into his guts, something he can't pinpoint but it feels like injustice and accidental mockery.

He doesn't remember anyone picking up on the other line. He doesn't remember opening the front door for the EMTs. All he remembers is the sound of Brendon needing help and he being unable to provide it.

"Shit," he says, grabbing a sweatshirt and pair of shoes, slamming the door behind him, putting his phone in his mouth--

\--"shit," he says, running down the stairs he nearly trips, nearly trips over feet clumsier than the array of anxious thoughts, than the blood surging frenetically and unnaturally through his veins--and--and...

..."Shit."

Ryan puts his hands on the steering wheel, staring at them as they are illuminated by the weak lights of his dashboard. Breathing, breathing, deeply, slowly. Nervous trembles have been stitched into the skin of his fingertips. He has no opportunity for symmetry to calm them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Allen Ginsberg, "City Midnight Junk Strains"


	2. Chapter 2

_where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and / immortal_

 

 

 

Pete watches Gerard's fingers dance on his coffee. He feels the same terse nervousness in his own extremities.

They both knew this was coming; it had been for months. It shouldn't have been news, but it was. Maybe it was so shocking because it was finality. There really wasn't any hope anymore. Those handful of words had decapitated that.

And yet, Mikey appears unafflicted. His own fingers are laced together, calm, unshaking. He is unique at their booth for that quality. He had always been peaceful as long as Pete had known him. His thoughts were under his control. What few words he brought into existence were poignant and fully deserving of every syllable. He was quiet, calculating, observant. It was this that made him calm in the face of his own demise.

"Don't be so down, you two," Mikey says, smiling. "It's fine! It's okay, really."

Pete watches Gerard's jaw clench and his throat bob. Seated beside each other, they are complementary. In light of the situation, it is nothing short of devastating.

They try to talk and they try to blame the awkwardness on the uneven number. Conversations stutter and halt with every word out of Mikey's mouth, even as insouciant and well-meaning as they are. Gerard and Pete don't feel they have the prerogative to taint the air with their own voices. They want Mikey's to hang as long as they can.

As they leave the coffeeshop and head back to the hospital, Mikey walks slowly. He's clearly in a large amount of pain, even though he tries to hide it with this reduced pace. Gerard walks beside him, holding his hand up for Mikey to squeeze the pain away. Pete follows from behind, glad that Mikey can't see him. He hears Mikey suck in a breath and stop briefly. Pete digs his nails into his palms, wishing it would rid Mikey's pain vicariously.

 

 

 

Pete and Gerard retire to the apartment Mikey shared with Pete. Mikey hadn't been home in months.

As soon as Gerard crosses the threshold, he begins to cry. Pete pretends he can't hear Gerard's ugly sobbing after he ducks into the bathroom. Pete pretends he isn't on the verge of doing the same thing.

Pete aimlessly cleans the kitchen. It needed to be done; the dinner he and Gerard had shared hadn't been cleaned and was currently congealing in the sink. Busy work keeps his thoughts humming at bay. He thinks of everything this ordeal has led to, especially his relationship with Gerard. Over the months, it had gotten much stronger. Gerard had hated Pete, and Pete was aware. He couldn't really blame Gerard, either, so he let it happen. But as they had something in common--

Pete drops the fork in his hand at this thought.  _Jesus, Jesus_.

\--even though what they now shared was completely horrible, it was something. They'd spent many hours together talking. Once Mikey couldn't live with Pete anymore, Gerard moved in. Whether it was to alleviate Pete's loneliness or his own, Pete didn't know. He didn't mind it either way.

Gerard enters the kitchen silently. Pete pretends not to notice his blotchy cheeks.

"Are you doing all right, Pete?"

Pete stares at the sink, at his hands scrubbing dishes he doesn't remember eating from. "Yes."

Gerard says nothing. They only hear the sound is clinking ceramic and water across metal.

"It's just--I don't know," Pete says, watching bubbles sporadically form and burst. "Even when I knew it would end this way, I still didn't expect it to."

"Yeah," Gerard says. It's not flippant or inconsiderate. Pete knows it to be an affirmation as well as permission to continue.

"I always thought...He's just more special than that, you know? He's above dying like this. It's too mundane for him."

Pete can hear Gerard dig around in the fridge, making his own hands busy. "I know what you mean."

And this is all they say about it. The day had been to exhausting; they cannot muster the energy to bring their words closer to the impending reality, even with meaningless duties to expel their anxiety. What remains unspoken lives in each other, and they are both aware. They do not need to bring more sadness into their lives.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Allen Ginsberg, "Howl"


	3. Chapter 3

_All we do is this frightening thing / we call Love_

 

 

 

Ryan isn't allowed to see Brendon, so he tries to pass the time in the waiting room. He stares at the carpet, letting the hideous pattern glaze over his eyes as thoughts race and collide and destroy each other. Hope attempts to squeak up between the anxiety and smother his worries. It's just pneumonia. It's just pneumonia.

Maybe he would only need to stay overnight, Ryan thinks. A precautionary action, just to comply with some rules in some book stashed in some far corner of the building. But Brendon would be all right. It's just pneumonia.

It's just pneumonia.

The door opens and Ryan nearly jumps out of his skin. He realizes his anxiety is so tightly coiled within him, he couldn't control his reactions to it. He has never lacked control over himself before.

The nurse speaks to him. Her words don't register until after she's left, until after Ryan's eyes have fallen back to the pattern between his feet. The meaning ebbs and flows into his chaotic thoughts, murmuring between them:

Until further notice.

But that could still mean just overnight, he tells himself. Still just precautionary. Still just a compliance. 

Until further notice...it sounded so serious and professional, and with it cold and distant. As if she had to prepare him for something.

Ryan clenches his jaw. It's just pneumonia. Brendon was young; pneumonia was only dangerous to the incredibly old. Brendon wasn't old. He would be okay. It's just pneumonia. It's just--

Ryan's phone vibrates, warning him it's about to die. He looks through the window of the waiting room door, as if Brendon would walk in.

He decides this is as good of time as any to go home.

 

 

 

Ryan does not sleep. The apartment is now haunted. He cannot bear the thought of identifying the ghost responsible.

 

 

 

He leaves his bed at five-thirty and calls it close enough to the termination of the night, something to justify his being awake as nothing but normal. He stares at the bed. The absence next to him fills the room, threatening to crush him.

The sun is up when he gets to the hospital, and he is taken aback to see that Brendon is awake.

Ryan buries his surprise at even being allowed into Brendon's room ( _It's just pneumonia, it's just pneumonia, this is normal, this is fine, I am not surprised, it's just pneumonia_ ), but the sight of him...

The first word that comes to Ryan's mind is 'confined.' Brendon is still wheezing, still sucking in short and shallow breaths. After all of this, he still isn't any better. His eyes are exhausted and his arms look impossibly heavy. Oxygen is being pumped into him via nasal cannula. Ryan hasn't seen this on anyone except for the elderly.

Ryan swallows.

"Hey," Brendon says weakly.

Immediately, Ryan's eyes begin to burn.

"Hey, sunshine," Ryan says, moving a chair across the room to sit next to Brendon, just enough action to shake out his nerves. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay," Brendon says, smiling lightly. "Tired."

"Well, you should sleep, then. Sleep is good." Ryan rests his hand on Brendon's, grateful there are no IVs protruding from his skin.

"I've tried, but it's hard. Can't fall asleep."

Even after this short string of syllables, Brendon's gasping. Ryan won't look at his eyes and instead stares at their hands. He can see Brendon's chest out of the corner of his eye, moving up and down far too quickly. He rubs his thumb over Brendon's.

"Hey, Ryan?"

"Yeah?" he responds too quickly, eyes darting up to Brendon's.

"I'm...I'm going to be okay, right?"

Ryan blinks. The words are harder to force out of his mind than he imagines.

"Of course, Bren. It's just pneumonia. You're not an old man, after all."

Brendon smiles, causing the tubes in his nose shift slightly. Ryan involuntarily grits his teeth.

"Go do something fun," Brendon says. "Don't waste your day here."

"It wouldn't be a waste," Ryan says out of reflex. "I'll--I'll go get food with Spencer," he adds clumsily, hurriedly.

"Okay," Brendon says. His smile is faint, but illuminates his face effortlessly. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Ryan says, kissing Brendon's forehead. Releasing those words felt like tearing something out from deep inside. Somewhere, somewhere, he was uneasy.

 

 

 

"Ryan?"

It's just enough to bring him out of his thoughts.

"What?"

Spencer looks down at Ryan's hands. Ryan has picked the edge of his fingernail off so deeply it's beginning to bleed. He wasn't even aware his hands were in motion with each other.

"Dude, what's on your mind?" Spencer asks. Worry weighs down his words and they spill out on the table between them. Ryan thinks they threaten to pull his own out from behind his teeth without his permission.

"Nothing," he says. He places his hands in his lap, out of Spencer's line of vision.

"Ryan, I know when you're worried. Just tell me what it's about." Spencer's eyes drift up to meet Ryan's. "Please."

He sounded exhausted. Ryan begins to worry if his anxiety feeds from the energy of others, sapping it right from their pores.

"Spencer, it's nothing. Really." Ryan tries to sharpen his words and base them in concrete. He wants them to be too dense for Spencer to see through.

Spencer sighs, and Ryan feels his chest tighten. He looks at Ryan for a few moments, shakes his head, and leaves the table. His exit is too calm to be permanent; Ryan assumes he must be going to the bathroom.

Ryan had never believed in coincidence or perfect timing. Nothing in his life had ever given him reasoning to support this, to ever make him think the world was neat and orderly. Maybe for others, but not for him. Up until this moment, this belief was solid in Ryan's mind.

The voice on the phone is familiar, and somehow, somehow, her words do not drip into Ryan's thoughts right away, but instead, gradually. 

"Sir?"

"What?" Ryan asks. He struggles to keep the air in his lungs. The dim lights of the restaurant begin to feel claustrophobic beyond their inviting intention.

"Sir, we want to inform you that Brendon had had an asthma attack on the night of his admittance."

Ryan blinks, staring at the corner of the table across from him, against the wall. "So?"

"So," she responds bitterly, and Ryan completely understands, "his preexisting breathing problems will complicate his pneumonia."

Breathing, breathing, in, out. "They will?"

"Yes. And, actually," she says with a kinder insouciance, "they already have."

Ryan can hear himself struggling to breathe. He's unaccustomed to the noise coming from himself.

"What do you--" Ryan swallows, clenching his jaw, blinking, blinking. "What do you mean?"

The nurse hesitates for nothing more than a moment, but Ryan feels as though he has lost years of his life in waiting.

"I think you would prefer to talk about this further in person, Mr. Ross."

Ryan hears the dial tone click. It is jarring enough to split open the seams of whatever has stitched him together.

He doesn't feel his feet carry him through the restaurant, to the parking lot, to his car, but he abruptly finds himself inside his car, staring at the steering wheel. It's too familiar too soon. God, how could all of this have happened in a matter of  _hours_ \--

Ryan can hear his breaths catch on the jagged edges of his lungs. The noise pushes him past the breaking point, and suddenly his eyes are burning, heat slipping down his cheeks and engulfing everything--every thought, every sight, everything he could ever feel in this moment, gone, gone, up in flames. His fingers twist around the wheel, fingers digging into the leather, knuckles imploring him to stop, but his body is searching for a way to escape the one thought now reverberating in his mind, the one that has usurped and smothered the previous, the only one he'll ever remember for the rest of his life:

He didn't even know Brendon had asthma.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Allen Ginsberg, "Wichita Vortex Sutra"


	4. Chapter 4

_the final wish_

_is love_

_\--cannot be bitter,_

_cannot deny_

_cannot withhold_

_if denied_

 

 

 

There is something about he and Gerard's relationship that Pete can't ascribe a definition. A few broad ones, but not a single umbrella term. They are learning each other--what sets the other off, what truths they find resonant in each other, what makes each other tick and what makes them spiral. They have one major thing in common, of course, and in the light of their scenario, this is all that matters. Gradually, their relationship is beginning to feel less like crude taxidermy; gradually, their scars lose the necessity of stitches. And with this progress comes an ability both of them need: communicating without speaking.

Somehow, somehow, between scant body language and wayward glances, they bring into existence their lack of desire to visit the hospital today. Complementing this is affirmation and agreement.

Gerard and Pete sit on a couch in Pete's living room. They don't sit as far apart as they used to, and something is to be said about that. The air they share is still taut and thick, and it filters oddly in their lungs, burying the words they can't bear to stifle and dredging up others that don't deserve to dwell in ears. Gerard brings up how much he hates that Pete continues to wear holey socks beyond the point of humor.

They watch vapid daytime television and learn nothing more than they had anticipated.

And as the sun begins its slow descent, something in their lungs breaks apart, loosening what acts as a divider within. There is something about the impending night that promises secrecy. They feel they have a sturdy enough bridge between them to test the limits of this promise.

"I still can't believe it, you know?" Gerard says, tacking on a colloquial invitation to keep the mood buoyant.

"Yeah," Pete says, standing and brushing his lap pointlessly. "I know. Me neither."

"I think you were right, Pete. I don't think Mikey deserves to go like this. No one ever does, but especially not Mikey. Especially not--"

Gerard's voice catches in his throat. Pete does not feel worthy to break the silence and intrude on Gerard's thoughts. He directs himself to the kitchen, as if he can break the tension by spreading it out far enough.

"You really love him, don't you?"

Pete feels a tightness in his chest, pressing down on his ribs. "Yes. I do," he says, respiring to the ubiquitous mound of dishes in the sink.

"I'm...I'm sorry, Pete. I really am."

Pete swallows the words down his throat, only permitting a few mundane ones to escape. "It's not your fault, Gerard. It's not anyone's fault."

The pause between them gives way to a timid confession:

"It should've been me."

Pete drops a plastic cup. It crashes against metal and glass, but all remains intact.

"Gerard," Pete says. "Don't say that."

"But it's true," Gerard says. "I--you're so right. Mikey doesn't deserve this, and--"

"And neither do you," Pete says, turning around. The sight of Gerard's illuminated eyes makes his jaw clench as reflex, as preparation, as the hardening of one's emotions to better handle the points of another's.

Pete watches Gerard's chest rise with a deep, contemplative thought. "Do you think there is any kind of lesson to be learned in something like this?"

"God knows there are a million books out there trying to do so." Pete rests his hands on the edge of the counter behind him, shifting his weight back. "I think if anyone can teach us a lesson, it's Mikey."

In a quick succession, Pete watches Gerard duck his head, bring his knuckles to his eyes, and walk away. Despite their progress, Pete knows he does not have the prerogative to test the foundation of their bridge any further.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Allen Ginsberg, "Song"


	5. Chapter 5

_The weight of the world / is love._

 

 

 

Leather fills the space between his knuckles. Hesitation fills his head.

He doesn't need to go to the hospital. Brendon would be fine. He  _is_ fine. It was just pneumonia. It is just pneumonia.

Ryan swallows, clearing the residual explosion from inside his throats. His cheeks are taut, pores filled with the salt evaporated tears leave behind. His fingers tighten on the steering wheel but not nearly as tight as they had been. He looks at the dashboard and the numbers are meaningless.

 _I can go home_ , he thinks.  _Brendon is okay._

Ryan stars the car. Nausea curls around his stomach.

Just pneumonia.

Ryan backs out of the parking lot, headed to their apartment.

Just pneumonia.

He blinks often while looking in the rearview mirror.

Just pneumonia.

If he keeps his fingers tight, they become still.

 

 

 

Ryan cannot bear the thought of sleeping in an empty bed. He wastes his restless hours on the couch, waiting for the sun to rise, waiting for time to pull him under as it dragged itself forward.

 

 

 

Yellow rays have just begun to meet pavement when Ryan's soles strike the concrete. This is his first time walking to the hospital. It takes over an hour. He realizes it is the furthest he has ever walked in the earliest hours of the day he has ever inhabited. It is an adventure, but covered in cobwebs and devoid of light despite the sunshine.

There is a new magnetism to the hospital now. Ryan knew he was only being attracted because Brendon was within, and yet knowing that his feet crossed the threshold far too easily than he'd liked was still sickening. Perhaps even more sickening was the denial to see Brendon.

"What?"

The same nurse approached him in the waiting room that had been on the phone. Her voice sparked muted violence in him.

"Sir, just--look," she says, abandoning pleasantries. "He's not doing well."

"Please just let me see him." Ryan's implores sound thin and flimsy in his ears. He cringes at how tenuous his voice is, all because of--

"I can't. And you wouldn't want me to."

"Why not?" Ryan barks.

"Because he's--" She lowers her voice, calming her reflexive pugnacity. "Because he's having an asthma attack right now. As we speak. I couldn't let you see him like that."

Ryan hears blood pound in his ears.

Suddenly, sun begins to soak into his shoulders.

He didn't remember leaving the hospital.

 

 

 

The apartment has large windows overlooking the city. They are nothing but beacons of light for Ryan now. As blood is still flooding his ear drums, his thoughts become muted. But they do not disappear. He watches the sun ascend and plummet, thoughts crawling around his skull.

He remembers learning that the human mind was fragile and gullible; if he really tried, he could convince himself of--

Of what? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Brendon was fine. He would be home soon. Nothing had happened today. Nothing had happened the day before. He was fine. He had always been fine. It was just pneumonia.

He was fine.

Knuckles strike the door. Ryan stands to answer it. His muscles relay to him that he'd been lying on the couch for the entire day.

Ryan blinks. He didn't remember more than a half hour passing.

Behind the door stands Spencer. He does not waste time pushing past Ryan.

"What the  _fuck_ , Ryan?"

Ryan blinks. Spencer had never treated him with anything other than niceties and warmth.

"What?"

Spencer's eyes squint. "Don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare, Ryan."

"What?! What are you--"

Spencer shuts the door behind him harder than necessary and it rattled in the frame. "You left in the minute and a half I was gone! And you didn't tell me why!"

Ryan looks away from Spencer, eyes falling to a spot on the wall behind him. "It's not like I was your ride. It's not like--"

"That's not the fucking  _point_ , Ryan." Spencer sets his car keys on the bookcase beside the door. "You've been flighty and spacey. I want to know why."

"Why?"

Spencer's eyebrows dart up. "'Why'? Because you've ignored all my texts. Because you won't tell me anything. Because you have never looked sadder in the nineteen years I've known you and it kills me that you won't let me help you."

Ryan breathes in, out, slowly, evenly. "It's nothing, Spenc--"

"It's not nothing," Spencer spits. "It's something. It's something bad." He puts his face in his hand for a moment, wiping the frustration from his skin. "Ryan. You're my best friend. I just want you to be happy. I just want--"

"I didn't ask," Ryan mutters.

"What?"

"I said I didn't fucking ask, Spencer." Ryan takes a step back, one after another. "I don't want your help. I don't know what you see in my eyes or whatever, but I'm fine. I'm tired, I miss touring, but I'm completely fine. Just stop trying to help."

Spencer's tongue briefly tents his cheek as he mulls over Ryan's words. "Ryan--"

"Stop!" The crook of Ryan's knee catches on the coffee table, and he clumsily permits himself to sit on it. "Just stop. Just go, Spencer. I'm fine. You didn't need to come here. Nothing is wrong. I'm fine."

Ryan watches as the anger-hardened edges of Spencer's eyes melt into the oblivion of raw frustration and sadness. Ryan feels nothing short of evil and feels deserving of the burning behind his eyes.

There is the scratch of metal on wood followed by a statement of either surrender or victory; Ryan can't tell. But he allows the words to swim in his mind, drowning some thoughts and buoying others. It is an inundation and susurration he has been familiar with his entire life, but feels like a foreign welcome now. He doesn't feel fit to accept it anymore:

"When you need me, I'll be here. I always have been." 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Allen Ginsberg, "Song"


	6. Chapter 6

_we share an archangelic cigarette / and tell each other’s fortunes_

 

 

 

Pete spends another day in the company of a Way. He finds himself not doing much more than sitting in this scenario, either.

He knew Mikey wouldn't be doing much more than sleeping at this stage. With him he'd brought a book to match the one he'd already had stashed in Mikey's hospital room. It was an old shitty paperback, just in case Mikey had ever been bored. He didn't know if Mikey knew it was his favorite novel. He didn't know if he should tell him now, in case it would bring up some kind of misplaced guilt. Mikey had always been sensitive like that, as if every step he took forward could land on Pete's toes. Pete assumed this is what lent its way to Mikey's introspective nature and his reserved comments. He was afraid exist outwardly in case he would hurt someone. 

Pete looks at Mikey's hand, resting in his lap. 

That boy was light. He blinded everyone that got too close, and it was nothing near a downfall.

Mikey's fingers twitch, just for a moment, just for Pete's eyes.

He resists the temptation to take it into his own.

And with this resistance, he needs to distance himself. This denial aches somewhere deep in his bones because he never knows when he'll be able to do it again, or how many times, or--

or even if.

If, if...that was the question now. That was the question quietly consuming his thoughts, and surely Gerard's as well. But he knows they are not alone. He knows there are countless others going through the same thing, in some far corner of the world, beneath the blanket of time everyone had to suffer under. Time was all he had now, and all he ever really had. He was forced to watch as someone's seconds ticked closer to a stopping clock while his marched onward.

He didn't think there would ever be any greater torture.

To gain distance, Pete heads across the street to the coffeeshop, the one Mikey loved. He smirks at himself; it wasn't all too far after all. As he leaves he notices a man in the waiting room, sitting slim and straight, hunched over and looking between his feet. He looked as small as he wanted to appear, and quite possibly as small as he felt.

Pete considers saying something to the man as he leaves--something akin to an act of belated contrition, as if any amount of altruism could undo the cancer stitched in Mikey's bones--but decides not to. But when he returns an hour later and notices the man hasn't moved an inch, Pete changes his mind.

"Hey," he says, sitting at a distance he judges to be comfortable.

He looks up, but says nothing. Given they are the only two in the room, Pete continues, creating the illusion of comfort.

"Are you all right, man?" he asks, staring at the coffee between his hands. 

Still no reply. The man's soles scritch on the carpet.

Pete knows what to say, but he hesitates, aware of the weight of these words in his own hands but never in the hands of another person. And yet, something inside him beckons him, pulling the words from between his teeth.

"It's someone you love, isn't it?"

Pete is taken aback by how quickly the man's head shoots up. His eyes are vivid and crisp, brimming with every truth he'd tried to hide but had been pulled to the surface by Pete's words. It's jarring; it sends chills down Pete's spine.

"My boyfriend is dying of cancer," Pete offers. The words leave his mouth feeling dry and sour. He watches the man's eyes flicker with something he wants to believe is acknowledgement, affirmation, relevance. It is enough to fuel his words, pulling them from his incarcerated thoughts and tossing them into the world.

"He's--he's had it for months. Close to a year. It wasn't going to end well, and we all knew it. We just had to watch it happen. And now it's nearly over with. And it...it sucks," Pete says through a laugh.

The man continues to look at him. He says nothing, so Pete continues pulling.

"It hurts to watch someone you love die, doesn't it?"

"He's not dying," the man barks, syllables crashing. "He's just sick."

Pete blinks. He knows prevarication when he hears it now. "Oh. I'm sorr--"

"It's just pneumonia. He's fine. He's fine." The man looks away from Pete and back to the busy floor.

"Well," Pete tries, "pneumonia isn't always horrible. As long as he's, you know, relatively healthy, he should get over it soon." His eyes fall down to his coffee, and he examines the white plastic lid. He hates the mock alabaster perfection. "As long as he doesn't have lung problems or anything."

He hears the man suck in a deep, jagged breath and all he can think is  _Oh god, oh no_ \--

"Ryan Ross?"

A woman Pete assumes to be a nurse entered the room without either of them noticing, and they both jump in their seats. Pete is glad she's not after him--delaying the inevitable a few moments longer is close enough to grace as he'll ever demand--but he's equally bitter for this gratitude. He watches the man leave with her, to--to speak in private, he realizes. 

Pete knows this is a turning point for the man; he knows his words won't do any good anymore. He finds a pen on the receptionist's counter and scrawls his digits on the styrofoam. Pete leaves the cup where the man had been sitting. Maybe it would be some good for him. Maybe it would serve as some kind of peace, or at the very least the opportunity for commiseration, bonding, something to pry him from loneliness. And he knew it was an assumption, and he knew it was horrible to place words in other people's mouths, but he couldn't help himself. An old self from a year ago begs him to do this for the man.

Pete knew he'd wanted nothing more than someone to talk to when he'd first received the bad news.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Allen Ginsberg, "The Green Automobile"


	7. Chapter 7

_he threw up his hands / & wrote the Universe dont exist  / & died to prove it._

 

 

 

Finality was encroaching. Gerard let Pete watch the seconds run away first. Pete finds that for all the words crammed between his ribs, he has nothing to say.

He listens to Mikey speak. For the first time in his life, Mikey speaks without interruption or meaning. Pete hears none of it and feels incredibly guilty, but he can't make himself. He looks at Mikey, peering into his eyes. He hopes that if he stares long enough, he'll never forget what they look like. He hopes that time will spare his memories. 

He wishes he were that important.

And up until this moment, Pete has been relatively okay. No major breakdowns--no sobs hidden in bathrooms, no shattering dishes out of frustration, no agonizing cries for mercy on his knees. He hadn't hit the turning point yet. He knows that it was because nothing had really sent the whole ordeal home for him. He'd watched Gerard suffer, punching holes in Pete's apartment and kicking his car and screaming at Pete as if he were responsible, but he didn't feel the same. He hadn't, at that point. For him, nothing had made it seem out of the ordinary, different from the multitude of stories he'd heard his whole life from a whole menagerie of people. It had never really mattered to him before now. But now...

The flood of syllables bouncing off Pete's ears are completely foreign because Mikey had never spoken this much. He reserved every word for a purpose, weighing every letter to ensure it filled the shoulders of its importance. Even when Pete teased him lightheartedly about being quiet, he was never anything but. Never had been. He wasn't used to rambling at all, as was evident by the words dripping like drool down his chin and into his lap. Clearly, it was foreign to him; he had never understood why Pete was so prone to talking and had often fired a sharp comeback about his wasting of words. And now he was saying anything and everything he could, testing smiles and rounding out laughs as he saw fit. Mikey's words were him as an essence--Mikey personified, Mikey exemplified. And now he was wasting air on vapid sentences. He was dirtying the only thing he'd ever found important, the only thing he felt he could ever do that was worthwhile.

Mikey was doing it because he didn't know how to comfort Pete.

It takes all of ten seconds for Pete to leave the room.

 

 

 

Pete spends three hours in the waiting room. Gerard is with Mikey the entire time. 

He doesn't remember any time passing because he was trapped in the back of his thoughts. Trapped--that was accurate. His body felt miles away, like the world had prepared him for shattering by making his exterior thick. He knew the world was fair in doing so.

When Gerard does enter the waiting room again, his eyes are wet and his cheeks are blotchy. They say nothing. Pete considers putting his arm around Gerard, but he doesn't want to set Gerard off. If he were to shatter, Pete would follow without a chance at stopping himself.

They leave just as someone enters--the man from earlier, Pete realizes. He doesn't know if that was hours or days from their previous encounter, and the man doesn't look like he can tell either. His eyes imploring Pete's for help, and the colors suggest nothing but muted screaming and utter, irreparable exhaustion. Pete's hand touches his on the doorknob for the briefest moment, and he can feel the man's fingertips trembling beneath his own. 

Pete doesn't feel he has the prerogative to say anything, to set the man off. They part ways between familiar walls.

 

 

 

Gerard gets the call just past one in the morning. He can't stop himself from laughing.

They had gone into their separate rooms as per usual, despite knowing they wouldn't sleep, despite knowing that at this point feigning normalcy was pointless. Maybe that's what tipped Gerard--having lived on the edge for so long and finally being free of the pressure of balancing. He was plummeting now, and Pete decided it was for his best to display this as he saw best. He knew they would both have to clean up his shards when he finally shattered.

Gerard stands in the doorway between the guest bedroom and the living room. Pete can't bring himself to sleep in his bed--not now, not today, maybe not ever again. His cackles reverberate off the walls, and for a moment, it's chilling. It takes a fistful of seconds for Pete to flip on a lamp and stand up, and it's all he needs. Once he looks at Gerard, Gerard stops laughing. Once Pete puts a hand on his shoulder, Gerard begins crying.

And again, time is fluid and unpredictable for them. Gerard cries for what could only be weeks, but is actually something akin to hours; Pete cries for hours, but it feels like minutes. In the night, in the cover of the stars, secrecy is bestowed upon them again. They have been given their daily opportunity to spill hidden truths and better stitch their seam, but now--

Now they do not need to.

Somehow, between the imminent sun and their knotted lives, they find peace. They adopt a secondhand peace knowing Mikey is actually, really, finally okay again. They receive peace in the stolen midnight seconds, existing in silence and never feeling more important, more significant, more holy. And ultimately, they stumble upon the peace of unity. Somehow, they watch the sun rise out of the corner of their eyes as they focus on crudely humorous movies. Somehow, the words dealt between them are no longer calculated and instead become gracious. Somehow, they sit flush against each other on the couch and enjoy each other's presence.

The reason for their friendship is not happy, and it never will be. But maybe something can be said for the beauty of crossed bridges, of rough taxidermy, of the termination of tense relations. Maybe not everything was as horrible as it appeared to be. Pete knew there would still be months of tears and agony ahead of him--such was the prize of loving someone so completely and losing them forever--but he wouldn't have to do it alone. He had a partner to walk through this grief with him, to traverse the wake of loving and losing Mikey Way. Together, they had been drawn to the illumination; together, they could travel through the darkness with blind eyes and a newfound appreciation for words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Allen Ginsberg, "Memory Gardens"


	8. Chapter 8

_I / want love I was born for I want you with me now_

 

 

 

For the first time in two days, Ryan is allowed to see Brendon again. 

When he sees Brendon, he feels nothing.

Numbness fills Ryan, pressing outward from the inside. His thoughts are only registers of surroundings, devoid of anything that meant anything: Brendon was still in the hospital bed. Brendon's breaths were still uselessly shallow. Brendon's eyes were still glossed over with exhaustion.

Even when Brendon smiled, Ryan felt nothing. The absence of love made him feel despicable. He hated every inch of his skin for it.

"Hey," Brendon croaks. The word sits on thick, foggy air. Ryan's chest aches somewhere six inches to the left of him. That noise should never come from a living being.

"Hey," Ryan repeats, forcing the corners of his mouth up into a smile. He sits next to Brendon, placing his hand on top of Brendon's knuckles. He is careful to avoid the IV.

"How are you feeling?" Ryan asks slowly. His words are drenched in apathy. He hates himself for it.

"Okay," Brendon says. He sucks in a short breath before coughing. Ryan watches Brendon gasp and spit out mucus and blood and grip the sheets of the bed, pulling his hand out from under Ryan's so he can try to gain leverage. It's just like that night. And just like that night, Ryan can't do anything to help Brendon.

Something in Ryan's chest aches more profoundly.

"Hey," Ryan chokes out, afraid to touch Brendon again. "You're gonna be okay."

Brendon blinks at him, and his eyes catch a current. Ryan had brought to the surface something Brendon had tried to drown.

Ryan was making him relive agony. He hates himself for it.

And now he realizes his words are just as useless as his presence, but maybe, maybe he can try again. He reaches to touch Brendon's hand, but stops. His fingers are trembling--from the medication, from the abundance of steroids in his veins and airways, maybe from some residual adrenaline. Ryan can't let himself calm Brendon again. He can't fail again.

Ryan puts his hands between his knees, avoiding Brendon's eyes. He wants to touch Brendon. He wants the symmetry of both of their quivering fingers. He hates himself for it.

Out of this hate arises self-loathing: he does not deserve Brendon. Brendon didn't deserve his useless attempts at love and comfort. 

Ryan leaves the room without a word and with a defined pain between his ribs.

He heads to the waiting room and realizes it's full of early morning light. He didn't remember how long he'd been at the hospital. He didn't remember it ever being night. But through the fog of knotted time he did remember the last time he'd seen Spencer, probably all the more because he was there to remind him.

He says nothing, and Ryan's face burns. There was no turning back now.

Spencer looks at Ryan, looks away, and leaves. Some magnetism in his bones pulls him to Spencer, following him out the door, down the pavement, into Spencer's car.

For whatever reason, slamming the passenger door closed dissipates every inch of fog in his head. Ryan looks at Spencer and feels everything he had buried, everything he had shoved away, everything he had denied. Unpredictably, his eyes begin to burn. Unpredictably, he hands his guts over to Spencer.

"He has pneumonia," Ryan chokes out. And in his thoughts march the same regime as there had been for this whole ordeal, but they have bled together now, mixed into nonidentity:  _heisgoingtobeokayit'sjustpneumoniahe'sgoingtobeokayhe'sgoingto b eokay he's goi ng tob e oka yhe ' s go ing t o_

"He's not going to be okay."

Spencer says nothing, waiting for Ryan.

Ryan wipes his eyes quickly, brushing the tears away like dirt. "He had an asthma attack. He had  _two_. I didn't even know he had asthma. I didn't even--"

His throat bobs, forcing down tears. Ryan looks out the windshield, pleading to the world for everything to stop.

"We--we live together, and--we're dating. We're dating," he repeats, ripping the secret from where it had twisted around his veins. "And I can't--Spencer, I can't--"

"Ryan, it's okay," Spencer says softly, slowly, evenly. "Just breathe."

That is all Ryan needs to hear to push him over the edge.

Deep inside Ryan's throat is a noise of separation and cracking, and it is the instigation of everything. "I can't let him die. I can't let him die. He can't die. He can't--we're too young,  _he's_ too young, and we're just about to start touring, we're just about to make things happen, and it--fuck,  _fuck_!" Ryan awkwardly kicks the glove compartment in one fluid motion.

"Ryan--"

"Everything is just beginning now!" Ryan shrieks. "The band is finally taking off and things are finally okay between us and our dreams are finally fucking to start becoming real, and--he doesn't--"

Ryan clenches his jaw, using every muscle to anchor the bones together, to stop himself, but he can't, not now, not anymore--

"He..." Ryan sniffs, sucking mucus down his throat and it's a kind of bitter wish to live through Brendon's pain vicariously, to take his spot in all of this because--

"Brendon can't die," Ryan whispers, voice wavering and threatening to disappear. "He can't die. He doesn't deserve to die. I love him, I _love_ him, he can't die, he can't, he--"

Ryan's voice catches and dies in his throat. All he is left with are tears.

The early morning sun permeates the windows and bleeds into Ryan's shirt. The warmth feels like reassuring palms, like ubiquitous kindness, and it makes him bitter. The sound of his own desperate, hideous sobs fill the space between the front seats. Ryan hates that he's ruined a morning and all the goodness it stands for. He hates that he has burdened Spencer with his heavy heart. He hates that poured his love into something as beautiful and ephemeral as a human being. He is fully aware of his weakness. He hates himself for it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Allen Ginsberg, "Message"


	9. Chapter 9

_Is it the sun that shines once for the mind, only the flash of existence, than none ever was?_

 

 

 

As a writer, Ryan never used cliches.

He thought the use of them was indicative of unimportance or unoriginality. As he wrote lyrics, his own scattered poetry, or whatever lay in between he avoided the temptation of comfort and familiarity. He wanted to create a life free of repetition and routine. As he walked from the waiting room to Brendon's room, he realized how much of a fucking joke that was.

Here he was, about to spend an evening at Brendon's bedside. How movie-esque that was. How romantic. How completely vapid. He could barely look at the walls as he traveled though the corridors without feeling a bitter laugh bubble in his chest. He, who hated cliches, was about to fall into one himself. But he can't bring himself to laugh, or even smirk inwardly. In light of having had three different breakdowns since the morning with Spencer, it wasn't ironic anymore. Exhaustion had settled into his bones and hunger ravaged his insides. A heavy, heavy cloud in the left side of his chest weighed him down, and when his body was done making him a skeleton, it would be the only thing left.

Ryan wants to laugh at himself. He wants to picture himself as a character in a film, the vapid character left whispering wishes as the love interest lay comatose. It was fitting that he would be the pained lover. It was fitting that he would be forced to watch Brendon die. Ryan adopts apathy and unfeeling as an armor now--he can't deal with the pain in any other way. And he knew it would come later, after Brendon died, after it was all real and final and irreparable. He would just have to wait. 

And if he were that character, what would he tell Brendon?

Would he bring up his excitement for the band? Would he bring up his excitement for his dreams coming true? He couldn't imagine being so poetic, so weepy. He aimed for depth and meaning in his writing, but never neatness or beauty. He was neither. Ryan could never give final words that would tie up his feelings so well. He wasn't that special. Or maybe Brendon was just that special, just that unique and complementary and perfect for Ryan that Ryan could never do his passing justice. He could never be good enough, especially not for Brendon.

Ryan finds himself at the door, and he hesitates. Behind this threshold would be the beginning of the next chapter in his life. His ribs tighten, threatening to shatter bone and pierce lung. A deep tremble drips down his arms and into his fingertips, radiating in his wrists. He was nowhere near ready to live without Brendon.

He manages to grip the handle and push the door open. The blood drains from his face at the sight of the empty bed.

_What?_

Panic shrinks his lungs with every breath and every racing thought.  _What? What? What? How did this when did this happen how did i not know did they try to tell me?did they try to call me? what? what? what? what fuck fuck fukcfuckfuckbrendon--_

Ryan's breaths are shallow and futile, just loud enough to hear over the rush of blood in his ears. He reaches for his phone, checking for a missed call, but how could he have missed it? How could he have missed anything pertaining to Brendon? How could he have let this slip by him without his knowledge? How could he have been so--how could he have not been the tortured boyfriend he was meant to be? How was he not granted that semblance of peace? How--

Ryan's throat closes; the breath he sucks in is no more than a wheeze. The noise is all he needs to shove him over the breaking point again,  _again_ , and he drops his phone, letting tears drip down his face like hail, letting his sobs rise from the mute he shoved them beneath, letting his thoughts rip away all of his armor and pierce deeply, deeply, straight through his ribs and into his heart, letting his mind quarter itself with anger and frustration and hopelessness, and he knows, he knows, he knows:

He has to begin his life without Brendon.

For fear of his knees locking, he turns to leave the room and go to the bathroom to let this pass, or maybe even the waiting room, the  _fucking_ waiting room, because he sure as hell hasn't gotten familiar enough with the torture of calm walls and indifferent kindness and meaningless pleasantries, and fuck,  _fuck,_ he wipes his eyes and is appalled by how wet his face is, like it's drowning, like  _he's_ drowning, and for a split moment he wishes he was, he wishes--

Just inside the threshold, he collides with a body.

"Hey, careful," the man says evenly.

Ryan's blood must be going through some kind of vertigo. At the sound of that voice, it drains from his face. 

"I hope your phone didn't scratch," Brendon says.

All Ryan can do is stare.

Brendon walks past Ryan, bending down to pick up Ryan's phone. He's dressed in the tee shirt and pajama pants he had been admitted in, examining the screen of Ryan's phone with his fingers. "I think it's okay," he says.

Brendon's eyes float up to meet Ryan's. Ryan bursts into fresh tears.

"Hey, hey," Brendon says, pocketing Ryan's phone and placing a hand on his shoulder. Ryan can't unhinge his joints or jaw and stands motionless, completely motionless. 

Brendon puts his arms around Ryan's shoulders. "It's okay," he whispers, lazily touching his lips to the shell of Ryan's ear.

At this, Ryan wraps his arms around Brendon's waist, tight enough to ensure he'll never leave again. After a few moments and then more, Ryan pulls away. Brendon has a hand on each of Ryan's shoulders, peering into his eyes. 

"Ryan, it's okay," he says.

Ryan swallows, opening his airways, but the words come clumsily and bounding: "How--what are--why--?"

Brendon laughs easily, followed by a short burst of coughing. But it's short,  _it's short_ , and it never had been before. 

"I'd been bedridden long enough for them to take pity on me," he explains through a smile. "Can't go home yet, but I can walk around some."

The sight of Brendon's smile makes Ryan's lower jaw click against the upper, nervously, full of the residue of shock. "Are you better?" he whispers.

"Yeah," Brendon says, inhaling as deep as he can as proof. It's not normal, but it's decent enough for Ryan's eyes to begin burning again. "Apparently I'm--I'm stable and...improving."

Ryan blinks, slowly, evenly. Brendon laughs at this.

"So, um," he says, "I can stay close. We could get coffee..?"

Ryan gives a short, awkward nod. "Yeah, yeah, that would be...good," he says. "I just.." He presses his lips to Brendon's, noticing how dry they are from days of solely oral inhalation. Somehow he had forgotten how warm they were, how pliable, how they didn't match his at all but the collision made it worth it all. He remembers he hasn't kissed Brendon properly since before he was hospitalized, and he has to fight back tears again.

"I love you," Ryan mutters against Brendon's lips. His hands curl around Brendon's waist, imprinting his hips into Ryan's thumbs. "I love you so much. So, so much."

Brendon inhales, and the relative clarity of his lungs makes Ryan beam against Brendon's kiss. "I love you too, Ryan."

Ryan hugs Brendon again. He is determined to never forget how Brendon feels in his arms.

 

 

 

"Are you sure you don't want any coffee, Brendon?" Ryan laughs as he notices him staring at his cup.

"Hmm? Oh, no," he said. "Not good for me with all the meds." He holds up his paper cup in a mock toast. "I'll stick to my water."

Ryan nods. "I can't believe this."

Brendon brings the cup to his lips. "Can't believe what?"

"That you're here," he says slowly. "I thought you were going to die."

With a soft slam, the cup plummets to the table. Water spills everywhere, covering the surface. Ryan begins patting down napkins and makes a witty offhanded comment about Brendon's clumsiness. Brendon doesn't move.

Ryan attempts to laugh the comfort back between them, but tension has filled its place, settling over them and pressing into their shoulders, threatening to weigh them down.

"So--so, um," Ryan tries, "how do you....feel?"

Brendon shrugs, eyes fixated nowhere on the table. "Fine. Fine, um--just tired. Lack of oxygen is exhausting."

"Oh," Ryan says. "Yeah."

He hates his awkwardness. He wants to rip it from his tongue.

"Do you..." Ryan swallows, knowing he wants nothing less than to speak the words behind his teeth. "Do you want to go back?"

Brendon nods. "Yeah." He stands, and Ryan remembers that Brendon is dressed in pajamas. He wonders if he is embarrassed; he wonders if that is the cause of their tension. "Yeah, and I can walk myself back."

Ryan blinks. Knots begin to tie themselves around his stomach. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," he says, walking toward the door more quickly than Ryan could stand. He turns to Ryan, and realizing they are alone, kisses him softly. "I love you," he says.

"I love you too," Ryan says. He peers into Brendon's eyes and finds something he can't identify, some truth he's obscuring from Ryan. But maybe he was looking too hard. Maybe he was still too on edge from the whole ordeal. He takes Brendon's hand and Brendon intertwines their fingers. A grin blooms on Ryan's face. 

"I can't wait for you to come home," he says. "I can't sleep at all without you."

Ryan grins sheepishly as he says this. He can see Brendon's jaw clench, and the smile falls to the floor between his feet.

Brendon drops his hand from Ryan's, retrieving his cell phone and putting it in his palm. He presses a kiss into Ryan's bangs. "I love you. I love you. Be good."

He pulls away, looking into Ryan's eyes without another word. As he leaves, Ryan wonders if he imagined the tears welled in Brendon's eyes.

 

 

 

But even if he hadn't, he forgets about them completely.

Ryan returns to their apartment with feet floating on unbridled joy. He waved away the discomfort, blaming it on his increased anxiety, Brendon's exhaustion, something about how they met again at the wrong time. But they had met again, and that was all that mattered to Ryan.

He waltzes about the rooms with a stupid, bright smile on his face, humming songs he can't remember and dancing with a ghost. After a handful of days he can no longer count back, he steps back into their bedroom again. The air is thick and a little heavy even, but it doesn't bring him down. He knows Brendon is coming home. He knows.

It was late now, at least late enough for Ryan to collapse in their bed. He would--god, he'd missed it so much and couldn't keep away knowing it would soon be shared with the love of his life again--but he needed something first.

Rummaging through their shared dresses, Ryan finds the red shirt. It was nothing more, nothing less--a cotton tee shirt that had seen better days. But it had a history. It had  _the_ history: Brendon had borrowed it on an early tour, giving it back on Ryan's birthday. In this action, there was kindness and deeper meaning than it so appeared; without words, they realized this and realized the other knew it.

Brendon had stolen a kiss. It was the beginning of it all.

And even though it had been just months ago, it felt like years. This ordeal in itself made Ryan feel like he'd aged no less than a decade, and he laughs. He laughs at projecting how they would remember this. He laughs at how their future seemed impossibly far away and yet so easily attainable. He laughs at how ready he is to welcome sepia-stained memories with Brendon.

Ryan takes off his shirt and pulls on the red tee. He bunches the front and presses his face into it, breathing in the scent, slowly, evenly, in, out. It smelled like sweat; it smelled like Brendon. He never wanted to take it off again.

He climbs into their bed, setting his phone on the nightstand. He grins into his pillow and feels warm tears begin to slip between his eyelids. He can't believe how wrong he was about all of this. He can't believe he ever thought he was going to lose Brendon. He can't believe the world would ever lit him live out that cliche.

Ryan does not sleep well, and it does not upset him--after all, he would never be able to sleep again without Brendon by his side. He waits, imagining how good Brendon would feel pressed against him again. He waits, imagining how good hearing Brendon belly laugh again would hear. He waits, imagining how wonderful a good night's rest with the love of his life would feel.

As the hours pass, Ryan feels at peace. The only thoughts in his head are happy memories and illuminated wishes. His stomach is free of knots; his ribs are free of pain; his fingers are free of trembles. He is okay. It was just pneumonia. He was going to be okay.

They both were.

It is the early hours of the morning when Ryan's phone buzzes. Not quite night, not quite morning. Some conduit time in between, some bridge between the two opposites. Immediately, Ryan assumed Spencer is responding to the flurry of excited texts he had sent when he'd come home. Maybe it was even from the man who'd left his number the other day, who Ryan had also forwarded the good news to. He flips it open without glancing at the number, the bright green of the keypad glowing radioactive across his features. 

He recognizes the voice. Once again, her words do not immediately register in Ryan's mind.

His phone crashes as it plummets to the wood floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Allen Ginsberg, "Kaddish"


	10. Epilogue

_the war is over / Except for the souls_

 

 

 

Pete speaks. Ryan cannot contribute a single word.

He hears what Pete says, though. He hears every syllable. He can no longer bounce back voices carrying sadness. That ability was long gone.

"You never really get over them, do you?" 

Ryan exhales, and it is more of a sigh. Lately it had become a sigh more often than not--slowly, evenly, out. Out.

Pete watches Ryan look away and drink his coffee absentmindedly. He knows better than to pry the words from him.

"Sometimes I think it's a good thing," Pete says. "It meant it was real, you know? That he was the one. Regardless of how it ended...I'm glad, I think. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, right?"

Ryan's head turns forward and down, eyes drifting to the cup in his hands. His fingers lace together lazily over the mug. Still he says nothing.

"Ryan..."

He lifts his head. Pete is taken aback by the tears pillowing Ryan's eyes.

"You're not alone. You can always talk to me, or Spencer, or...anyone. Just--" Pete exhales, and it too resembles a sigh. "Just please talk to someone. You can't shoulder this alone. You're not the first one to do it."

Pete can see Ryan's jaw clench shut just after it begins to shake.

His phone vibrates, alerting him he has to leave. He says goodbye to Ryan, puts down money for both their coffees, and leaves.

Ryan struggles to identify his feelings. As someone who coped with the world by writing about it, this was torture. For he alone, it was the second worst type of torture he would ever experience.

In absolute truth, Ryan knows he can't figure out what makes him tick anymore. The winder of his clock is gone, and his gears had stopped turning months ago. The space between his ribs was filled with cobwebs. His guts were rotted with stagnation. His fingers felt like lead.

Even his bones were impossibly heavy. Every movement felt like unhinging rusted joints. Ryan stares at the newly vacant seat across from him. Even when he knows Pete's leaving wasn't permanent, the ghost he left behind stares back.

Out of the corner of his eye Ryan can see the sun beginning to set. Peripherally, light is slowly being dragged under the horizon, gradually but irreparably wiping it from the sky. Ryan stares at the coffee in front of him. He tries to breathe deeply, but his chest will not permit it. His ribs feel like squeezing, crushing fingers around his lungs.

The light is beginning to fade, and darkness creeps around to take its place. Such was nature, such was life. Ryan downs the rest of the mug, repressing a gag. He didn't think he'd ever be able to make himself like peppermint. 

Stars begin to shine as the sky sours in color. He didn't need the sky to remind him of what time it was, what he should be doing, what he should be feeling. He didn't need his world to remind him of the encroaching darkness.

He knew his sunshine was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Allen Ginsberg, "Witchita Vortex Sutra"


End file.
